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Hosting firm WebECS has just released an improved Sonic Support service which complements the firm’s Windows server hosting, Windows VDS hosting, and ASP.NET web hosting offerings. The new Sonic support service, which will be made available to existing WebECS customers, enables businesses to obtain fast assistance whenever they need it.

Kyle Beckham of WebECS said that his company has been offering hosting services known for their high quality customer support for 14 years now. He added that the new support service is going to help the company address the technical issues of their customer faster than ever before.

Sonic Support service addresses the demand of worldwide WebECS customers for a fast yet effective customer support service. The company has created the new service understanding that whenever a business’s server is down its revenue can be severely affected. Businesses that operate online as e-commerce websites are especially vulnerable when server downtime occurs.

Sonic Support service is ultra-fast and features comprehensive technical support articles put together by experts. The main feature of the service is the searchable knowledgebase that allows customers to quickly find straightforward solutions to their problems. The new customer support service also comes with ticketed support, which lets users get in touch with a support expert in just a matter of minutes. To ensure that each support ticket receives a high quality, practical response, WebECS maintains a team of U.S. Windows hosting experts. Ultimately, Sonic Support service wants to help businesses remain online, by providing high quality support as quickly as possible.

The Sonic Support service is available to all WebECS customers, regardless of the plan they are on, at no extra fees. For more information about WebECS’s newly launched customer support service, and the company’s Windows dedicated and virtual hosting options and ASP.NET web hosting services, check webecs.com.

Google+ is a newly launched social networking platform, which, although not the direct competitor of Facebook, is likely to become a major threat for Skype. Currently, Google+ is only available to a limited number of users.

Some years ago, when Google introduced PageRank, it revolutionized the way users searched for information on the web. PageRank was an evolution of the original search system introduced by Google, which was more concerned with directories of websites. These days search has become just as much about people as it is about pages, the social factor becoming increasingly important.

Google has always been somewhat skeptical of the social factor. However, the company’s vice president of products, Bradley Horowitz, speaking of Google+, said that the company has finally understood that the social factor is essential for search. He added that it is important to know the people before you organize the information for them. Google+ can be said to be the direct result of the company’s revelation.

Google+ can be accessed at Google.com/+, as well as through a toolbar that follows you when you navigate the web. To use Google+ you must register a Google account; you start with a network made up of people in your address book. The toolbar lets you share messages, links, photos, or video with your family/friends/colleagues and notifies you whenever someone shares something with you.

Google+ Features

• Circles: Lets you create circles of contacts such as friends or family through which you can filter access to your profile and shared stuff. For example, you can choose to let only your family circle see the vacation videos you share via the toolbar.

• Hangout: A wonderful feature that may make Skype fans uneasy. It’s basically a simple group video chat that lets you invite others by notifying them. Hangout seems easy to use and not much taxing on your system. What’s more, it doesn’t require Flash.

• Huddle: A tiny mobile service through which you can group-chat with your contacts. If you’re familiar with Beluga then you won’t be disappointed with it.

• Instant Uploads: Lets you upload a photo or video to Picasa or YouTube and then share it with a particular circle.

The Belgian City of Ghent has just become the first Benelux city to officially announce its intention of securing a personalized domain name extension in 2012, when ICANN will begin to accept domain extension applications.

At the moment, there are not more than twenty generic extensions that organizations or businesses with an online presence can use. Currently available extensions include .com, .biz, and .info. In addition, there are also a few hundred national suffixes like .fr (for French websites) or .uk (for United Kingdom websites). However, because of the fantastic rate at which the web is growing, they no longer suffice.

To add a flavor to the naming system, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) decided during a recent Singapore conference to enable the extension of top level domain names. As a result, starting with early 2012, ICANN will accept applications from organizations that wish to obtain a personalized domain extension. This is likely to lead to the creation of extensions such as .sport or even .toys.

Resul Tapmaz Councillor for the City of Ghent said that he is delighted his city is the first Benelux city to announce its intention of securing a personalized domain name extension. He added that the new extension, .gent (Gent being the Flemish name for Ghent), will be a useful tool for local companies, shopkeepers, as well as for municipal departments.

In order to obtain the extension, the City of Ghent will team up with CityTLD.eu, an ISP based in Ghent. Resul Tapmaz explained that the council’s decision to choose CityTDL.eu as a partner is due to the fact that the company utilizes Belgian software and is based in the city. If ICANN doesn’t change its admission timetable, then the City of Ghent may get its .gent domain as early as next year.

Three new exhibitors have just announced their participation at the cPanel Conference 2011, which is to take part later this year. The new sign-ups are Resell.biz, which offers affordable domains registration and management services for resellers; CentOS, which distributes free enterprise-class Linux; and CloudLinux, which offers hosting services on a customizable Linux OS.

cPanel’s Aaron Philips has said that interest for the 2011 cPanel Conference has been gradually increasing, to the point that all exhibition spaces are expected to be sold out before HostingCon 2011 takes place. He added that the attendee registrations are also likely to be sold out soon. Media sponsors to attend the conference already include names like Linux Journal, Ping! Zine, and the Web Hosting Review.

Phillips added that besides the old, regular attendees of the conference, many new faces have shown interest in this year’s event, which cannot but excite him. He especially noted the presence of Linux Journal.

More about cPanel

As the best known control panel software developer for web hosting purposes, cPanel has been around for more than 14 years now. The company is particularly interested in creating flexible software that allows web hosting professionals to customize and modify a server. The result? A point-and-click platform that represents an affordable and accessible hosting solution. The licensed software distributed by cPanel allows webmasters, developers, and even resellers to approach web hosting in a new way, and to greatly increase accessibility via a simple yet powerful web-based interface.

The 2011 cPanel Conference

Held between the 10 and 12 of October, 2011 in Austin Texas, this year’s cPanel conference is devoted to emerging technologies as well as to training. Being held yearly, the cPanel Conference brings under the same roof a large number of technical experts, managers, and even executives.

Over the years, the annual conference held by cPanel has grown in size and scope, until it became one of the most important web hosting conferences to be held in the U.S. This year’s event promises to be bigger and more interesting than all previous conferences.

Your website is hosted on a server that usually hosts several different sites at the same time. This server sharing is how web hosting companies can provide service to numerous companies at a reasonable cost. If you wanted to have your site on a sole server the cost could be prohibitive, especially for smaller companies. Similar to the CPU of your home or office computer, each web host server is also controlled by a CPU that accepts directions and executes commands to make the whole thing work.

When multiple instructions are received by the web server CPU it puts all of the requests in a quay, in order of appearance, and handles each request in that same order. If multiple sites receive numerous instructions at the same time it can cause the entire system to slow down as each request is handled one at a time. When all of the hosted companies are operating at peak efficiency, the servers can operate just as efficiently to provide quality service to all of the companies hosted on the same server.

To insure all companies hosted on the same server function properly, host companies have a couple of options to insure they remain operational. Some companies use what is termed throttling that prevents one site from using the majority of available resources of the CPU processors. The server CPU can limit the time and bandwidth available for any one site at any particular time. Others limit the resources available to all of the sites on its servers, effectively not allowing one site to cause service degradation to other sites.

Still other are beginning to use cloud formats to allow the host company to draw on other virtual servers connected to their cloud to add processing power during peak demand periods. Resources of underutilized servers in the virtual cloud can jump in when extra processing help is needed.

It’s a well known question, what’s in a name, and it’s been said that a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, but that name may not be available in the near future as domain names issued under IPv4 are quickly running out. While many domain name issuers are geared up and ready for IPv6, some others are not and it could affect how their customer’s websites function.

Due to the growth of the internet, the number of address available through Internet Protocol version 4 is rapidly diminishing and Internet Protocol version 6 is meant to expand the number of names available to meet the anticipated needs of the future. IPv4 began in 1981 and allows 32-bit support for the IP identifying numbers, with maximum support for about 4.3 billion internet names.

With more people developing websites, as well as the introduction of millions of mobile devices, the number of internet names will quickly run out. IPv6 will allow for 64-bit numbers used in the identifier numbers and provide not only the capacity for more names, but also the ability of those names to travel across IP boundaries. Internet protocol names consist of packets of numbers that include the origination location and the target location and as the number of names decline, reaching the destination can take longer and result in some travels through different IP areas nearly impossible.

While many companies are already using IPv6, some are not and those are the ones whose customers could end up locked out of even finding a name they can use, once all of the approximate 4.3 billion are in use. Is it believed that sometime in August 2011 the last of the free names will have been issued and then only those that utilize IPv6 will be able to issue domain names. IPv4 will still exist and dual-use technology will remain in place, but new names will only be available through IPv6-capable companies.

As more businesses seek to optimize their sites for search engines, Wisdek Corp., recognized as a leader in search engine marketing, has begun offering SEO packages to resellers. The packages, discounted to resellers, have been developed to help smaller companies have better access to SEO technology as well as to introduce Wisdek to a much larger audience.

Wisdek is proud that it is the first SEO company to offer wholesale packages to hundreds of resellers, making SEO packages available to smaller companies that otherwise may not be able to take advantage to the tool they contain. Each reseller has the opportunity to offer different packages and they can set their own price and markup to determine the price and how much they will make on each one.

Each package will offer clients the expert skill and knowledge of online technicians, who constantly strive to improve a website to be better recognized by the search engines. Content management, along with keyword and key phrase research and site analysis are just a few of the services available in the packages being offered by third-party resellers. The main thrust is to help websites become recognizable by search engines, but Wisdek, as well as its resellers, are also knowledgeable in marketing to social media.

SEO packages offer to optimize sites for the local listings on Yahoo!, Bing and Google and each package provides clients the opportunity to manually submit their sites in social circles such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Different packages will offer clients the chance to use a login for the social networking sites while still being provided marketing services on different levels.

Wisdek has grown since 1998, when search engine optimization and search engine marketing was in its infancy to grow its 10,000-plus clients around the world. With its home office in Toronto, Canada Wisdek maintains offices in 10 countries, making it a global power in SEO.

HTML5 and CSS3 have changed the way web developers create websites, but many feel that learning how to use them efficiently can be difficult. SitePoint, one of the world’s largest online publishers of web development resources, has just released HTML5 & CSS3 For The Real World, a resource that should make a web developer’s life easier.

HTML5 & CSS3 For The Real World intends to help web develops learn the tricks of the new, revolutionary technologies, therefore allowing them to design better and faster websites. The resource focuses especially on the many concerns that despite the great advantages of HTLM5 and CSS3, they don’t work well with older browsers.

Matt Mickiewicz of SitePoint, who is the one responsible for the launch of the new resource, comforts those who worry about the new technologies and older browsers by saying that the HTML5 & CSS3 For The Real World offers practical solutions to major compatibility concerns.

The key advantages of HTML5 and CSS3 include built-in support for layouts with multiple columns and rounded corners; the possibility of embedding vectors, audio, and video without Flash; and new fonts, form gradients, and shadows that can be used to achieve a more creative and attractive design.

HTML5 & CSS3 For The Real World is a thorough yet accessible guide for the new technologies that tells a web developer how to effectively use HTML5 and CSS3. Some of the key topics it covers in detail include video embedding in HTML5, the creation of intelligent web forms, the designing of web applications for mobile devices, and the speedy creation of attractive graphics.

HTML5 & CSS3 For The Real World is a worth-checking resource for any web developer who wishes to work efficiently with HTML5 and CSS3. It’s noted for its practical advice and comprehensive coverage of key topics. Find more about it at www.sitepoint.com.

As plans become finalized for HostingCon 2011, anticipation and excitement continues to build. There are 52 scheduled sessions across four distinctly different educational tracks planned for the three-day event. Scheduled August 8 through 10 in San Diego, California, this is the annual event that aims to provide answers to hosting services world wide.

With several veteran speakers, along with some new faces information will be per reviewed to verify the accuracy and relevance of the presented information to the hosting industry. Tracks will include information on business development, including information on expansion strategy, mergers and how to accurately value a hosting company.

The technology track will host experts from some of the top companies to offer their experience topics such as cloud hosting, security and the infrastructure for automated hosting methods. The emergin trends track will hear from others in related industries to discuss the growth of such things as mobile web hosting as well as compliance issues across the internet.

In the track for Sales and Marketing, speakers will present information on varied subjects such as social media use in business, search engine optimization as well as generating leads and conversion rates – how to track them and improve them.

Another promise about the information to be presented is that it will only be presented at HostingCon 2001. The presentations will be unique and not available at other conferences that may touch on similar topics. In other words, if you miss some information at HostingCon 2011, you will not be able to find it at any other conference.

HostingCon 2011 is the one place a year where some of the best minds in the hosting business have the opportunity to meet with experts in other arenas and share their successes and failures and how they can make changes to better their own business as well as the entire industry.

Recently two new guides were released on how to promote your business on the internet.  The guides were developed by Vertical Measures, an industry leader in online marketing.  Local Search Marketing for Business and Twitter for Business are now available on the Vertical Measures online bookstore.  The first guide describes in detail how to take your website to new heights using local search optimization methods.  This is done with highly structured content that is aimed directly at localizing the content to gain better search results.  Author Sarah Moraes draws upon her knowledge from her position as a marketing strategist at Vertical Measures.  She was able to draw from her experience in developing content, educational events, training seminars and marketing strategies.

Another excellent book that can help with the development of an all encompassing internet marketing strategy is Twitter for Business. This how-to-guide covers how to start using Twitter by integrating SEO techniques as well as how to quantify the success of such a campaign.  Ms. Gilmore relied on her background in public relations and journalism and her expertise in social media content and distribution strategy.

Both of the books are invaluable resources in developing a sound internet marketing strategy that implements standard SEO practices, localization of content and social media.  Vertical Measures has been in the business for years and both of these books share a wealth of knowledge right from the two of the people that make Vertical Measures a great company.

Vertical Measures is a leader in marketing online and has in their employ the most reliable and knowledgeable SEO and marketing experts in the industry.  Through a combination of content marketing, social media, and strategic search planning, your conversions will grow and make your website and your company more competitive and successful in the online marketplace.  The methods and instructions found within these books are critical to the success of any online marketing plan.  These two books can help you to achieve this.  The books can be found at the Vertical Measures bookstore which was recently implemented on the Vertical Measures website.